Teltin
by Byakugan789
Summary: Random OC 1 shot. Has it ever bothered you how... stupid the entire staff of scientists at the Teltin facility in Paragia were? To get rid of a plot bunny in my head, here is the extrapolation of a few pieces of ME world-setting used to make something cool.
1. Chapter 1

Grace Creed clenched her fist and smiled as the iconic blue aurora of a biotic disturbance field energized the local air particles. The scientists giggled. She was now the first synthetic biotic in the systems alliance.

Despite what many of her former colleges in the Teltin facility at Paragia had thought the process required no drugs or risky medical procedures but rather a substance that most of the galaxy overlooked.

Omni-gel.

Created by the omnitools corporation it was publicly expounded to be a mix of industrial grade plastics, ceramics and alloys kept in a molten state. Cool to the touch and having the consistency of petroleum jelly it saw use in manufacture and processing of raw materials and due to a recent hack of its systems as an all purpose doorknob.

But nobody really questioned exactly what it was. And why would they? It was just one more marvel nobody in this complacent society cared to understand. All most of them needed to know was that it work and it was cheap and you could make literally anything with it so long as you had the designs downloaded onto your omnitool.

If they only knew...

The truth behind the wonder-material was that it was something the citadel council had long ago banned and they kept the truth of it hush hush now that someone had found a way to make it commercial in a BIG way before the politicians realized what it actually was.

Nanites.

Tiny programable machines small no bigger than an enzyme or mitochondria. With nanotechnology, something banned under the citadel WMD accords you could create or modifye literally anything. And that was just what she had done.

It was public knowledge that the gene seqences present in the human survivors of element zero poisoning, those who became biotics, were present in 13% of the human population, roughly 1 in every eight people. It was also publicly accepted doctrine that unless you were asari you had to be exposed to Eezo upon birth to become a biotic.

The first part was right, but the second was a lie.

The reason biotic exposure has to be done during childhood, or better during gestation, was that Eezo poisoning, like heavy metals poisoning, liked to collect in fast growing cell structures and when only Eezo in the nerves cells was beneficial... trying to become one outside of a major growth period was tricky business requiring low level exposure over long periods of time to allow your body to adapt and absorb the material. It was both expensive and time consuming.

There was another procedure other than hers that allowed one to become a biotic after their growing period was over, but it had been developed by the Krogan and involved injecting or surgically implanting Eezo in the nerve fibers, something few enough of the highly regenerative lizards survived, never mind anyone else.

Dr. Creed's procedure was much simpler. Nanomachines, taken from the omnigel, were linked directly to her omnitool. Once transmission was established the tiny robots would follow the directions of a quality medical scanner meant for mapping nerve function for recent advances in related treatments. Eezo was then transported in minute quantities into every synapse and mylon sheath in her lower nervous system and very specifically selected pathways in her brain. The selection of these particular pathways had come largely from the unfortunates at the Paragia facility, but also from di and vivisected Asari commandos TIM had somehow gotten his hands on.

After that it was just a matter of sitting back and letting the fever run its course.

The problem with having biotics, she now found, was turning them off. With Eezo lacing every nerve fiber, simply moving set off a mass distortion field and ignited an aurora around her.

Grace sighed and moved over to her terminal. It was time to take her research...at least somewhat public. The question was whether she wanted to buy an Asari tutor, or deal with the bureaucracy and ensured exposure of contacting Alliance Project Ascension.

Let the games begin.


	2. Chapter 2

In the end Grace decided it was better to skip over the two obvious choices and head for Tuchanka. Her reasons were simple. First, the Krogan were the only people with experience in artificial biotics and second, working with the lizards was really the last thing TIM, or anyone else, would expect.

Due to the constant, and often destructive, distortions she caused every time she moved Grace set up her small personal ship to autopilot with audio-feedback control and lay down to relax for most of the trip.

The journey was uneventful up until her landing her landing on the Thrax compound. Clan Thrax were an odd bunch of Krogan and openly proud of the fact. Their clan produced most of the scientists, businessmen and engineers within the Krogan race, for as much as you could label any Krogan such. They were of course all warriors, but with the lizards that was to be expected. The engineers repaired, salvaged and upgraded the Tonka they drove, the scientists played with ever more vicious weapons systems and road around in massive Mark 1 Atlas mechs while the businessmen roved the facility with legions of Vorcha or LOKI mechs who pulled dual shift as warehouse laborer and psychotic mercenary thug.

Landing in the Clan Thrax space port after receiving permission to pass through their orbital gun screens Grace was met the Krogan scientst Thrax Grodd who peered down at her from the cockpit of his modified dropship which bristled with weaponry and carried his laboratory in the gutted belly of the former troop carrier. Once the gorilla-esk Krogan verified determined she was who she said she was he opened the cockpit, made a biotically powered jump and slammed into the platform beside her.

When Grace didn't flinch or get bowled over, rather merely flaring with biotic distortions the hulking reptile snorted and nodded at her. "So you're the squish, huh?"

"Squish?" Grace asked, brow furrowing.

"What we call the Asari bitches." Grodd said turning away from her and lumbering back toward his dropship. "Get a move on. You wanna learn, I want you on the table. Whole clan's fascinated to know how some squish survived my procedure."

When grace explained her modified procedure to Grodd, he laughed. "It would have to figure..."

he grunted. "Omnigel was the last thing the quarians ever made before the geth forced them off of their own worlds to waste away at the mercy of the council. Omnigel fabricators are one of the essential blackbox items of the all omnitools. Good to know they got one last fuck you to the council before the morning war."

He then shook his head. "You're an idiot though. Ever wonder why the squish are the only species who eezo doesn't collect in nerve cancer? It's because the blue bitches control their nervous systems conciously. Each nerve cluster can be activated or shut down individually unless you wanna link your entire body up to an amp or be a walking warp field you're gonna hafta change what you did ta yerself."

"Right..." Grace nodded. "Induce cancer or make myself hackable. You sure you can't just train me?" she asked. "Your work was what inspired me to develop this in the first place."

The Krogan laughed. "Now why would I do that? You were invited to the compound because we were curious. Curisoity satisfied, you can go without a bulled in your back."

Grace growled in the back of her throat, her body tensing and causing a warp field to spring up around her body, shattering beakers and computer screens and making the metal components in the lab shriek in protest. "Work with me here you damn lizard! Help me perfect this, help me train and I can give you something your race has been bleeding for since the council found the Turrians!"

"And what's that, squish?" Thrax Grodd scoffed. "Our dignity? Our honor? Our planets? Our Vaul damned revenge? I very much doubt your entire race could give us that!"

Grace expression turned to a feral grin. "I've got better. An old Krogan once told me that the greatest insult to an enemy was to be ignored. I can give you a method to bypass the Genophage!"

Grodd surged forward and slammed her against the wall of the ship. "And why in Kruban would I believe you could do that. Or would if you could deliver?"

"Because it's Cerberus goal to bring chaos to the whole of citadel space. A Krantt of gifted Krogan seemingly free of the genophage that the STG can't prove isn't? Our race is opportunistic, the uproar will give us all the leeway we need to takeover half the galaxy whilst everyone else is looking the other way. We won't even need to fire a shot!" Grace blustered.

While the statement was a lie, it wasn't exactly untrue or even uncharacteristic. There was no plan, but it was what humanity would do and that was definitely how TIM would have played it had it been his idea.

"And the Krogan die in glorious battle in the meantime." Grodd said chuckling darkly. "Fun, but no thanks."

Grace rolled her eyes. "Not necessarily. Keep your calm, stick to the Krogan businessman motif and the Turrians won't be able to justify it. The Asari will send in the Salarians, they'll do the catch and release thing, trying to figure out which krogan bred out the Genophage so they can poison you again and in the meantime you're having families while they scratch their heads, trying to figure out how you did it!"

The Thrax scientists looked somewhat mollified and let her go. "So how would you do this?"

Grace shook her head. "Uh uh, I want your promise first. On personal honor and recorded by my omnitool. I know you Krogans, you may be utter bastards, but you when you give your word you keep it."

"Fine, fine, you'll have your damn training! My krantt will even grab a bunch of human biotics from the four eyes for you to practice on! Now how do you intend to cure the genophage!"

Grace tapped her Omnitool, playing the Krogan's outburst once again before saving the file and smiling. Grodd growled at her, glaring and impatient. "The Genophage works by altering your pituitary gland. When it doesn't tell the body to produce the right hormones, or even enough of them in general your body doesn't produce fertile eggs or usable quantities of semen. You could have solved your problem by buying a good omnitool and a medical program to monitor and adjust your hormones." Grace replied, grinning ferally. "After that Krogan biology would take care of the Genophage on its own, producing enough children for a counter mutation to show up in a generation or two."

Grodd stared at her for several minutes before turning to the wall of the ship and slamming his crested head against it repeatedly. "Stupid, stupid, stupid..!"

"You'll have to play around with the program for a little while to get the hormones right" Grace continued, grinning even wider "but if you've got detailed health records from before the Genophage that shouldn't take too long. Maybe a month or so instead of a few years."

"You're a clever little pyjack," Grodd grumbled, pausing in his ministrations of the door frame "what if I want to keep you?"

"Swear your clan and it's children to a human security company and I'll stick around making you toys." the human shot back. "Otherwise, you got me till I'm satisfied with my training and process."

Grodd roared with laugher. "You've got a quad, pyjack! Alright, let's get cracking! Our problems won't cure themselves! I'll call in Thrax Juugo, he's the warlord I employ to teach my biotic enhancement processes survivors! He'll set you strait. And remember, eezo nodes, not lining. More nodes means more control, larger nodes mean more power!"

Life proceeded quickly after that. Grace made a fairly large amount of money with a fifty fifty cut selling her process to Thrax clan and Grodd came through well with the human test subjects and biotic teacher.

Being taught by a Krogan was... interesting to say the least. For one thing, she learned why many warlords were so fond of War Hammers. Krogan biotics would often combine a biotic charge with the bludgeons allowing them to smash through nearly any opponent unimpeeded. A normal Krogan charge was deadly enough, but a warlords charge complete with a biotically accelerated hammer allowed single warlords to crush Tonka, knock over Geth Colossus and take down gunships which were a favored weapon of both Human and Turrians military's and mercenary companies.

As a result Doctor Creed came out of the training an expert on the use and application of Biotic Charge. The biggest difference between her tactics and the Krogans in this however, were where the Krogans preferred a Hammer, the human woman preferred a blade. Lighter and much easier for her to handle it could be shaped by the omnitool omnigel fabricator to an almost monomolecular edge. Even if the edge needed to be repaired regularly because every strike dulled it, it wasn't much of an imposition given the utility of the tactic. Swords were too massive and slow for your normal shield or barrier to stop or hold against if it did and so all that was left to cut through was the armored hardsuit. Since Hardsuits were made to take and ablate Kinetic impact rather than a cutting edge... she'd won the respect, and occasionally hatred, of many within Clan Thrax.

When Doctor Grace Creed left nearly a year later she was several million credits richer, a trained biotic warlord and clan Thrax had nearly twenty times its number in ankle biters. Nearly all of the children suggered from the Genophage as well, but just as predicted, seven out of the twelve _thousand_ had mutations that allowed them to ignore it.

Let Chaos reign...


	3. Chapter 3

After leaving Tuchanka and returning to alliance space Grace used the credits she had earned off the lone Krogan business clan, which was quite substantial, and purchased herself a Valkyrie.

The Valkyrie is cruiser class ship made by the Mercenary company cum arms manufacture Jormangundr Technology. While technically illegal for them to do so they provide military and experimental grade hardware to civilians at the unreasonably low price of five times the cost in materials and manpower used to craft them.

I say unreasonable because most military contractors charge between fifteen times the cost of production and fifty. Your average MilSpec Mantis rifle for example sells for 900 credits from the manufacturer, 1000 or more from the retailer. In contrast though, it only costs 10 credits to buy the raw materials for it, 20 credits for the eezo in the accelerators and 15 credits for the time it takes a technician to monitor it's construction through the VI assembler or construction line. That's a mark-up of twenty fold if you buy direct, twenty two and a half if your retailer is nice. And that's not even taking into account the modds you're going to want to add to it which depending on the contractor can make the price skyrocket. So called 'civilian grade' weaponry is much cheaper though the the quality hardly takes much of a hit. Perhaps 15% or so penetration and efficiency. Deadly if you expect to be in constant firefights, but unnoticeable otherwise.

Jormangundr Technologies however is the primary designer, researcher, manufacture and retailer to the fringe world colonies, mercenary companies and Pirate gangs. They live far enough out in the Terminus that bureaucrats don't like to bother them and the anti alliance sentiment is high enough that the local governments and quite happy to be openly obstructionist to any that do come to bother their worlds primary source of income and protection.

Their own private fleet and the wary respect of their their usual clientele certainly doesn't hurt.

The company sprang up shortly after the attack on Mindor by the Batarians and has been quite popular and profitable since. Most importantly to Dr Grace Creed however was that they were happy to take her credits and didn't ask too many questions beyond what the client wanted and if there were any special details.

"I'm sorry," the salesman spluttered "you want to do what?"

"Talk to one of your managers. Someone I can make a strait up deal with the company when I talk to them."

"But..." he sputtered, "you've already bought a ship and you hardly need special contacts to buy any of our listed weaponry."

"It's pretty simple really," Grace asked "how do you manufacture your guns and modify armor on an industrial scale?"

The guy shrugged. No harm in telling her the basics, judging by the question she probably already knew. "Production lines and specialized equipment for items like firing blocks and other special materials, omnigel and a VI for most other parts, VI assembly line to put it all together. Same as just about everyone else. You want the particular processes you'll have to pay some ridiculous sum to wrangle an answer out of corporate or the line techs."

Dr Creed smiled and nodded, the details would likely go over her head anyways; her background was in medicine and related sciences, not weapons or ship engineering. "And in the field omnigel is used to manufacture weapons and mods wholesale from purchased designs." She added. "Many vehicles can be repaired with an omnitool and a small container of gel. Many things can be broken down the same way. And yet still, large metal drills and lasers are used for mining and massive factories are built for processing ores, manufacturing materials and assembling them afterwords... What if I told you you didn't need any of those?"

She leaned forward, arms under her modest C cup and pushing them up to distract the sales associate. "What if I told you that you could render ores wholesale with just an omnitool and some omnigel? It works on locked security doors and specialized military equipment doesn't it? Why spend time and money drilling when you can simply have the omnigel absorb it and render it down to base materials, ready to be reused in mere minutes?"

"I could bring that to my bosses and make a rather impressive promotion and pay raise..." he breathed, eyes alight "because I'm following what you're hinting at we can do the same with the weapon and armor factories and that would save a lot of money in expansion costs."

"Don't forget vehicles either." Dr Creed agreed, leaning back now and spreading her hands grandly. "Get a large quantity of omnigel that's consumed the right elements from ore, salvage or anything else and you can forge gunships and tanks wholesale. Want a fleet of Krogan Tonka? Buy one, break it down in the gel for a pattern and then go to town, Need to repair or modify a gunship? Same thing! It wouldn't work for armor plating, given you often need super-gravity-mass-effect fields to condense and shape it, but them's the breaks."

The shop-boy stared at her for several minutes before speaking. "If you know all of this,why bother buying a ship from us? Why not just make one yourself? Hell, why aren't you going into business for yourself? You could become a manufacturing power all on your own, and with the advances in internet, or I guess its extranet now, marketing we've made since joining the council, you wouldn't even need to hire much in the way of advertising or retail staff. You could probably put half of us out of business inside a year."

Grace rubbed the back of her neck and blushed. "I'm a biotic research doctor, not an engineer or arms manufacture. And I really don't have the patience or dedication to be a businesswoman. I like to learn, I like to create, but don't expect me to stick around and build things..."

After that conversation, she was quickly shown up the chain of command to the local execs. Once everything was explained, including the idea that they could used the same process to quickly produce and modify spacecraft wholesale, minus the armor plating of course, they happily agreed to deliver her ship in record time with no extra cost added for the long list of modifications she had requested.

In the end Grace was walking away with a Valkyrie modified to replace most of the crew with voice commanded VI's, the crew spaces with medical bays and a mech bay. The engineering and life-support levels were also greatly compacted after a conversation about how to use Omnigel and VI's as an automated maintenance system removing the need for walk and crawl spaces engineering crew members needed to get to and work on the equipment.

"You know engineers are going to hate you when this one starts to spread, right?" one of the execs asked, a burly guy named Boris.

Dr. Creed laughed. "They can get in line. And they shouldn't really, most people don't trust VI's very much, not with how well the council publicized the history of the Quarians and the Geth after the first contact war. Most people won't want to pay for this mod because of it. You'll still get plenty of money using these ideas for people who want to run their own starships and don't have the money to constantly pay for a large crew, but I expect it will be a more specialist market thing." She paused and tilted her head to the side. "But then, I've been wrong about plenty of other things before..."

She shrugged. "Speaking of engineers, one of the guys back where I used to work was talking about a way to fix the range issue with FTL drives. Remember how the Mass Effect core always builds up a static charge when used and how the buildup is a limiting factor on how far ships can go? He was talking about setting up a system to discharge the core into the ships power grid removing the need for a strong magnetosphere to discharge in. If the concept works you could gain a small power feed to the rest of the ship and remove the range and speed cap on personal FTL travel. Honestly though, I don't know. If it was that simple, why hasn't the council figured it out in the last two thousand years?"

The board of directors looked at each other before asking her to leave the room for a moment. After several minutes of indecipherable shouting Grace was called back in and the local branch chairman, a man named Mathew Herrik spoke.

"Doctor Creed, this board would like to offer you a job working for us. In exchange for your ideas and any further input you may have we are willing to offer you your ship as requested, free of charge and 5% of the profits made from profits modified by your deductions."

Grace got over her shock quickly and pouted. "Only five percent?"

The executive chuckled. "As revolutionary and eminently logical as your suggestions were, unless you have the research ready to be made available to us, many of these are merely avenues to pursue. We will still need to put in the research capitol and technical teams ourselves. Simply pointing out that the entire processing factories can be replaced by an Omnitool and an unreasonable quantity of Omnigel is not enough. We still need a computer powerful enough to handle the information of an entire star ships physical and molecular structure, a chamber to hold the gel in, testing large scale use of the gel to break down raw or salvaged materials and testing of the proposed omnigel modification system. You're valuable because you show us the outside of the box, but you're not _that_ valuable."

She thought about the offer for several minutes before responding. "If I say no to the job, will I still get my ship for free?"

The board members muttered among themselves before answering. "We consider the assistance you've given us worthy of an 80% discount, but without a contract to the company we cannot justify a lower price or a percentage of any profits made by the company."

The doctor bit her lip. "I would like to take the 80% discount and a license to trade my skills to the public on this world instead."

The board grumbled unhappily, having previously always preferred to hire such talents like the boy who had made the mini-disruptor torpedo ammunition, but agreed throwing in the merchants license despite not having offered it originally. As Creed left the room Director Herrik turned to the rest of the local execs. "Send this conversation up to corporate along with a recommendation to begin testing immediately on Korolus. The entire planet is a ship graveyard and has been the citadel's dumping ground for the last two thousand years. Mining and refining metals is a significant fraction of our expenses, if what the good doctor said is true we might be able to increase our profits by at least 12 percent on that alone without raising our prices or firing anyone. Also, I'd like to put a motion on the floor to send envoys to the Quarian Migrant Fleet. They don't have much to offer us ,or well anyone really, but they've still got the best ship engineers and VI techs in the galaxy. If Doctor Creeds suggestion works they'd be useful as all get out and we can get a lot of cheap, skilled, loyal technical laborers on long contracts by retrofitting their ships with shiny new systems that aren't held together by prayers, rust and prodigious use of duct-tape."

"Motion seconded." Replied an Indian woman.

"Motion made, motion seconded, the motions carries." Herrik rattled out. "All in favor say aye?" Of the eleven people in the room seven raised their hands in agreement.

"All against say nay?" Two of the men around the table raised their hands.

"That's seven in favor, two against and two abstained. Motion to promote the idea to corporate that we take advantage of the Quarian people passes. I move to adjourn."

By the time the meeting was over Grace was walking out of the local Jormangundr Tech corporate branch headquarters and typing furious on my omnitool, pulling things together to immediately set up shop. Renting out a small medical lab, ordering large quantities of Eezo and sending out emails through an old Cerberus Worm to pop up on all of the local inhabitants in-boxes telling them what she was offering. This being humanity, most would ignore it, shuffle the email to spam and forget about it. But then there would be a few... people who were curious, people who were hopeful, people who were skeptical and a few who were just desperate to be special. They would come, undergo a genetic screening and then, depending on whether or not they were among the 13% genetically capable of benefiting from eezo poisoning, would be given their choice of treatments.

Despite it's illegality in citadel space, genetic engineering is alive and well. The Salarians used it to create the genophage, the Vorcha used it to make their entire species into super-soldiers before the idiot masses slaughtered the smart ones, and Humans use it regularly to screen out genetic diseases, play around with Vanity and, on rare occasion, grow designer babies. TIM's friend Henry Lawson is hardly the only example, but his little super-girl Alice is still the best I can think of. The designer babies thing is important because one of the designer baby treatments a person can get is the genome that allows for biotics rather than cancerous death (50%) or immunity (37%). While gene alteration and expression treatments have evolved over the years to be quite fast, they still never managed to get the Biotic Gene-mod to be useful within the generation it was applied to...

Before me, that is...

As she'd suspected, the first people who came to her were a pair of skeptics. Henry Mills was a biotic Pirate who swore religiously by Jormangundr ships and weapons as the source of his success and James Mills, his brother, was a dock worker at Jormangundr who worked the cargo haulers. James was Jealous of his brothers powers and success and Henry, oddly for a space pirate, just wanted to help his brother, and if he could get more bang for his buck with his own biotics after the treatment, all the better. Neither of them believed it would work though and so Henry, the one with the money, brought along his crew with the full payment for both brothers and a pleasantly chipper threat of trashing my lab if the procedure turned out to be bunk.

Smiling brightly, Grace used her training under the Krogan battlemasters to hamstring his entire crew, dashing around with chained biotic charges and a sword. Once they were all down she set about taking their guns, applying Medigel and charging their Omnitools for the medical treatment. "So, what can I do for you boys?"

There was a lot of groaning and whimpering from the group on the floor. "We came to get modded, you crazy bitch!" James shouted from where he was cradling his ankles.

The doctor cocked her head, affecting her best 'genuinely confused' expression. "So... why all the guns?" They looked at her incredulously. "Oh Well! You come with payment then? Who's getting their biotics first?"

Contrary to logic, the pirates didn't attack her with their new-found, and newly enhanced, abilities once the procedure was done. Not because they couldn't, the pair of them took great pleasure in destroying stuff she'd put in a training room while the rest of the crew watched, but because what she'd done when they came in impressed them. After that my Dr Creed got a steadily increasing flow of customers. First was the rest of the Pirate crew who dug into their rainy day funds to receive the treatment and then their friends in other Mercenary and Pirate crews. Because of James showing off at Jormangundr before he resigned, company employees began visiting as well in and ever increasing stream.

'_If I'm not careful, pretty soon every outlaw and hired gun in human space is going to have magic space powers_...' she thought grinning as she checked her credit balance over a new shipment of Eezo '_wouldn't that be a trip?_' In the four months it took them to implement the first of the processes Grace had mentioned and build her ship she'd managed to recoup the entire original price on her new ship and made enough to buy two more with all of the upgrades at the stated, un-discounted, cost.

Grace Creed was heading into the dry-docks to pick up her ship when the sky began to darken, which was weird because it was noon local-time. Popping the roof of the sky car convertible, the reason became quickly apparent. Starships literally _filled_ the sky above her, coming down in massive formations, Jormangundr fighters swarming through the ranks like agitated hornets. Given the ramshackle and eclectic nature of the vessels she wondered at first if the planet was being invaded by one of the mercenary or pirate companies, but the presence of the fighters and the utter lack of overpowered explosives meant that, while the company may have been wary, they had few problems with whoever it was who was sending everything capable of landing to ground.

"Dr Grace Creed to Worm Tower, I couldn't help but notice the invasion, what's the occasion, over?"

"Dr, Creed, this is Worm Control, the boss invited the Quarians to a business meeting, we think they're trying to improve their bargaining position by being intimidating. We'll send you a flight path, but try to keep off the air, would you? It's rather busy here, over."

"Roger, accepting new flight path, good day Worm Tower."

When she arrived the shipyard was absolutely filled with Quarians. Ranks of MFM troopers marched side by side with groups of Jormangunr Mercs as each worked to jockey for positions while civilians and engineers swarmed around in small groups like schools of fish or excited pigeons. Many of them were clustered in groups, talking animatedly, while others were bothering the agitated formations of security personnel Jormangundr Technologies had brought called in in force. It almost looked like a contest to see who could overwhelm the other without shots being fired.

As grace landed a pair of security mercs ran up to my shuttle, rifles in hand and saluted. "Dr. Creed, it's a pleasure to see you."

She tilted her head to the side in thought before answering. "Jeremy, right? How are the new powers going? No pain? You're remembering to consume twice the calories as before the procedure?" She asked, noting the random biotic flairs of a fresh modder.

"Yes Ma'm! No issues so far!" The soldier said. "When tower heard you were coming in corporate dispatched us to escort you to your ship. Unfortunately, one of the bosses schemes arrived early, so it looks like you might not be able to depart today. Airspace conflicts you scan?"

The scientist nodded. "I suppose I can deal with that. Might be good to hire one of them as an engineer... or a test subject. Did you know that according to the council archives the Quarians used to be nearly 70% biotic and just as if not more powerful than the Asari?"

The pair of them shook their heads. "No, ma'm, what happened? The morning war?"

"Sort of," she replied, pensive. "After the war with the Geth and the council abandoning them they needed every credit they could hold on to and allowing for eezo exposure is expensive. Even with their severely diminished population it's simply been too expensive to pursue to the degree they used to. Last I heard only about five percent had biotics any more and those that do were in accidents from their ships breaking down."

"You seem to know a lot about us, Doctor Creed." A synthesized voice said from behind the two Mercs. "Captain Kerah'Suul Vas Tokyo Star." He added holding out his hand.

I shrugged and took it. "The old nebula cruise line? I thought those were all scuttled and salvaged when the company went under."

The captain looked surprised. "You really are knowledgeable, doctor!"

"Not really. My parents took a cruise on one when I was a kid. It turns out the Horseshoe nebula is a lot less interesting up close that being viewed through a telescope."

The masked man nodded "And much more dangerous as well. Nebula are good sources for Eezo mining, but the background radiation is phenomenal. As to the ship... well that was my pilgrimage gift to the fleet. As sad as it is to see a company go belly up like that, it was a major coup for me. A Luxurious passenger ship like that with it's own food processors and hydroponics deck? It's only a shame I couldn't buy more than one at the auction; I might have been a shoe in for admiral with a gift like that!"

"Shouldn't you be up on your ship then? If I remember the design it was about a third the size of a dreadnaught so it'd be too large to land... And you use a lot of human phrases. You made your pilgrimage with us?"

He nodded. "A lot of Quarians do these days. While you're not nearly so friendly or welcoming as we'd hoped, being a new race and everything, you're much better than the rest of the galaxy. Much less disrespectful and more willing hire us as real employees. As for why I'm down here, the Admiralty board wants me to work as one of the lead negotiators in this endeavor."

Grace laughed and started walking with the two guards. Kerah followed along and she began talking again. "Well in that case,.. you know they're going to exploit you right?" she asked.

Captain Suul nodded. "Everyone does, but if this goes if I think it will it will turn out to be a major step forward for the Quarian people. And for my bid for civilian fleet Admiral." he finished, eyes glowing merrily behind his visor.

"How do you figure?" the other guard asked, nonplussed.

"Your company intends to hire us for our skills as engineers and VI programmers. From the flow of the original conversation it seems they intend to pay us perhaps a quarter the regular cut or salary, true, but they're promising to refit and upgrade most of our fleet and, whether they know it or not, are providing a lucrative, safe and dedicated point from which young Quarians can depart on pilgrimage. Even better, we'll have the chance to be directly involved in what appears to be a manufacturing and ship outfitting revolution. We are a race of technicians and, due to recent circumstances, scavengers. Even if the pay they offer us is truly unfair I can hardly imagine a way in which this does not benefit us. Beyond that even, it will be a chance for us to form contacts and friendly relations with several dozen mercenary companies and reintroduce the galaxy to the superior qualities that exemplify the Quarian people!"

Grace listened to the Captain pontificate as they walked, thinking about what she had already done for the Krogans. Or well, clan Thrax as least... Regardless, the council had abandoned and shit on the Quarians just as they had on the Krogan, though for different reasons. While she had been lying when she told that old gorilla Grodd her reasons for doing what she did, but idea held a pretty fair amount of truth to it. Cerberus goal was to destabelize the rest of the galaxy in a manner that promoted humanity above all. Her own actions were hardly contrary to that, expecially given what she'd given to the Krogan. The galaxy WOULD change when that came to light.

The question was... why not do the same thing for the Quarians? Doubtless they had medical programs that monitored their immune system, why not fake out their immunodeficiency the same way she had cheated the genophage? "Speaking of pilgrimages Captain... got any cute young doctor types I could steal away from you? I think I have a pilgrimage gift your people would really appreciated for when they return..."


End file.
